so pacific, as to
disarm retaliation and perpetuate good will; so benevolent, as to excite
gratitude and diffuse joy wherever their names shall be known; and so
holy, as to exalt the christian religion in the eyes of an idolatrous
nation! But he must be grossly ignorant of human nature, or strangely
infatuated, who believes that they will always, or commonly, exhibit
this unexceptionable conduct.

It is my sober conviction, that no contrivance or enterprise could
possibly be planned more fatally calculated to obstruct the progress of
christianity in a heathenish country, than the establishment of a
colony, or colonies, of selfish, ignorant, or even intelligent and
high-minded men, on its shores. In every settlement of this kind,--no
matter how choice the original materials,--vice will soon preponderate
over virtue, intemperance over sobriety, knavery over honesty,
oppression over liberty, and impiety over godliness. The natives will
see just enough of christianity to hate and shun it; finding that its
fruits are generally bad--that it has no restraining influence upon the
mass of its nominal professors,--they will not easily comprehend the
utility of abandoning their own idolatrous worship; looking only to the
pernicious examples of the intruders, they will spurn with contempt the
precepts of the gospel. Their confidence will be abused--their lands
craftily trafficked for nought--their ignorance cheated--their
inferiority treated oppressively; and then what must naturally follow?
Why--WAR--_a war of retaliation_. All the vices, and few of the virtues,
of the instructers, will be faithfully copied; and thus barriers will be
erected against the progress of the Christian religion, not absolutely
insurmountable, it is true, but sufficiently tall and strong to retard
its noble career--barriers not only of superstition and ignorance, but
of hatred and revenge. These reflections might be extended to the size
of a volume; but they are probably sufficient to convince every
unprejudiced, discerning mind, that the establishment of foreign
colonies in a barbarous land is the surest way to prevent its speedy
evangelism and civilization.

In reply to this reasoning, some of the advocates of African
colonization may argue, that schools and houses of worship, multiplying
with the growth of the settlement at Liberia, will check the evil
propensities and passions of the emigrants, and qualify them to act as
missionaries or instructers